Rich

Even if he's capable of just doing 15 minutes he'd be worth having on the bench as an option. Carroll is a bit of a wasted space anyway because you'd expect either Oba or Ameobi to be on the bench anyway and they'd always get the nod ahead of Big Andy if a change had to be made up top.

He'll have been training for over 2 weeks come the weekend, but with Carroll scoring for the Reserves last night I would actually be surprised to see him on the bench. PhysioRoom has him down for a return on Saturday and I've read a few bits and bobs in the papers/on the official site recently saying that it could be possible to have him back in contention come the "derby", but definitely no more than a bench appearance. He'll be chomping at the bit (ha!) to be involved for 'Boro, so suppose we'll see.

I don't think Joe's daft enough to change the defence after a clean-sheet at Stamford Bridge, unless someone gets a knock. I'd be amazed. Hoping to see Taylor/The Duke/Geremi on the bench ahead of Edgar, Carroll and Lua Lua, but apart from that I'd be happy enough with the same team/squad.

Thank you for pointing that out. I'm well and truely sick of people suggesting Jonas in the centre. For the record i'd be looking to play him on the left and buying a right winger. Valencia would be nice. I dont like having inbalanced wing attacks, if Jonas plays on the left then i think we should look to buy a player who cuts in as well for the right. That gives us an extra dimension on the wing. It worked with Ginola/Gillespie Pires/Ljungberg weren't bad either. Symmeticral doesn't always = better, although being fairly OCD I do appreciate a nice bit of symmetry when it comes to formations.

Awesome Decky, thanks. Has everybody who has had theme problems recently been cured now as well, since the Search is back up? (People who were saying the skin/theme was broken.)

Well that's a pleasant surprise. Jumped from 84% to being completed, so Search should be up and running for everyone again now, I've just re-activated it for everybody. Please let us know if it has "improved" for you. It still won't be super-fast due to the sheer size of the forum these days (upwards of 1gb, just within posts) if you're searching for a fairly generic term, but it should be pretty swift for pinpoint searches like "elephant", "giraffe" and "bananas". Because we know they're popular search terms.

Have to agree with Shak/Wull/Unbelievable on this, for the most part. While Charlie is not entirely blameless and has played his own part in things undoubtedly, people are far too quick to jump on his back and blame him 100% for the fact he hasn't become a star player for us. The fact that he is still better than his direct competition (Damief Duff) despite this is the real issue for me, especially when he's not getting a game because of him. It's a farce. Obviously we don't see training, etc. like the managers and coaching staff do, but we do see games (i.e. where it matters) and it appears that not many would argue for Duff ahead of N'Zogbia. Surely that's where you judge a player - out on the pitch?

My mates here think I'm crackers. Keep trying to explain the scale of things (i.e. hundreds of people online most hours of the day) and why I keep spending so much time at my flat on my todd/missing lectures, but they're not having any of it. The twats haven't even been signing me in on lectures I've missed so I've had two warnings of "Unsatisfactory Academic Conduct" from the department regarding my attendance, which I'm in the process of trying to erase from my record with some, well, lies as to why I wasn't there. This fucking place, man. If we get it working, though, it'll be worth it - especially if we can create a new theme and everything for it, while retaining all members/messages/PM's/etc., which I reckon is possible if we can get this current incarnation of the Forum working adequately. The possibilities are pretty vast, if so: ignore functions, main-page integration, all that jazz...

It sounds pathetic, but it has actually been keeping me awake/been on my mind all the time. I just want it working smoothly for everyone with no connection errors at all, then I'll be able to relax. At the minute it feels like an unfinished job (which is what it is, really) and I won't be happy until it's done.

81% done now. Estimated completion time around 9.30pm. Nothing drastic has happened... yet!

It's still in the process of getting fixed. Takes forever, unfortunately, and even when it's done there's no promise that it'll be working as it should. Tooj sent me a PM at 11.20am which basically stopped it for 90 minutes, so you can blame him for that extra delay It's beyond 70% done now though, so will be up and running with the new Custom Index by tonight, unless something drastic happens.

Up and down like a whore's drawers for me, but it's because the search index is being created. Aye, this is my fault, needed to do it again. If anyone is experiencing slow speeds/variable speeds on the pages, then that's why, it'll be going through the night again.

The whole idea is insanity, man. Anyone who's seen Taylor and Bassong at FB could surely attest to that. Neither are good going forwards, having that pair would equate to the pace of the current pair, just on opposite sides, we'd be reducing the size of our central defensive pairing along with it by putting Beye in there... I could go on, and on, and on. I've seen Taylor have 1 good game at RB, which Dave has already mentioned. When Bassong has played LB I've thought "good defender, offers nowt going forwards." The fact the whole post I had issue with said that you can't use 1 match to justify the current back four and then went on to say "from yesterday's evidence a lot of Beye's best work came in the centre of defence covering for Colo or Bassong" to justify Beye being played in there says it all really.

Aye, just because Search is currently missing. Will be sorted when we reactivate it later on.

Sorry about all of that today folks, been moving up to the next level of server with the new hosts. Took the opportunity to have them do a bit of a flush on the database and fix some more nooks and crannies for us, which obviously took a fair bit of time. Hopefully you'll find performance to be better, but we're not expecting everything to be fixed just yet. We'll have to restart the fixing of the search again, but we're hoping to have that sorted out fully by later on tonight. The timing took us a little by surprise, obviously, but at least it's done now. That should be the last of the major upheavals for a good while (he says...)

In the words of this great man... http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2008/02/16-22/will-ferrell-jackie-moon.jpg ...EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY!

Fair point overall, but that last sentence is an embarrassment.

I'm not sure we're in a position to sell anybody before more bodies are brought in, personally. Except Smith, maybe.

I think that's an intriguing point. Why is it he's never had a real chance under these managers in his best position? And they've consistently preferred the underperforming Duff? Same reason that no-one's bothered to replace Nicky Butt (and the same reason I think Alan Smith will be straight back into the side when he gets back). I think it is a good point, to be fair to oldtype who raised it and I don't think that's a decent answer, Wullbert. Edit: though I think it's unfair of Kitman to lump KK into the suggested managers, as he played 4-3-3 for a good majority of his tenure (while Zog was crocked for a lot of it too) and had Jonas/Milner/Geremi wide in the games he oversaw this season, not Duff. Something is amiss that we obviously aren't seeing/aren't privy to, or Duff has to play to justify his massive wage packet? It could be a number of things, really.

Erm, not massive opposition but two that immediately spring to mind are Stoke City (h) last season in the FA Cup (Keegan's return night) and Coventry City (a) this season in the League Cup? Now I know for a fact that my memory is bad, but some of you on here are practically amnesic (when it suits). Also, KK quite gladly had him at left back on a fair few occasions, so he must have seen something in him. Zog started this season alright in that position, actually, until everything came crashing down.

N'Zogbia was injured for most of that spell, wasn't he?

Are you drunk?

Geremi might have a knock though, as he wasn't even on the bench against Chelsea.

To me, while there are some elements of truth to that (in terms of timings/his form), it's rewriting history for the most part - at best it's simply using horrible overstatements (edit: bolded them bits, to show what I mean).

Disagree, amazingly.